Boehner: GOP won't shut down gov't

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rejected the idea that Republicans will shut down the government if they come to a legislative impasse with President Barack Obama, even as some conservative activists have predicted and even pushed a shutdown next year.

“Our goal is to have a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government here in Washington DC. Our goal is not to shut down the government,” he said.

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Republicans like Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) and Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller have said recently that Republicans will shut down the government if they can’t agree with Obama on spending bills.

They’ve spoken favorably about former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stalling government operations after disagreeing with then President Bill Clinton about spending in 1995.

That approach may have backfired on Gingrich and helped Clinton get reelected in 1996.

“If the government shuts down, we want you with us,” Westmoreland told audience members at the conservative Faith and Freedom conference last week.

Gingrich has played down the idea, saying on Fox News Sunday this week that Westmoreland didn’t choose the “wisest words” and that he expected Boehner would do everything he could to avoid a shutdown.

And on Thursday, Westmoreland walked back his earlier comments at the conference.

“I never proposed to the crowd that we have a government shutdown,” he told POLITICO. “I was just explaining to them that you can get into a situation much liked what happened in 1995 with Gingrich, where there was a government shutdown.”

He suggested that if a shutdown happened, it would be because Obama didn’t respect a mandate from voters.

“If we take the majority, that should be a good indication to the president that the American people have not agreed with his policy and his platform. And that they agree with ours. And I think that would give him some reasonability,” he said. “And it wouldn’t come to a confrontational situation. I hope it would never get to that point.”